Iowa City Liberty calls on Sauls in first boys’ state soccer game to upset No. 1 Dallas Center-Grimes

DES MOINES — How would Iowa City Liberty respond this time?

Ben Jackson gave his top-ranked Dallas Center-Grimes boys’ soccer team a first-half lead. He started the second half with a second goal to restore the Mustangs’ lead.

Both times, the Lightning struck back. And then kept striking.

Ninth-ranked Liberty (10-8) scored three unanswered goals in its boys’ state soccer debut to knock off the Mustangs (13-4) in a Class 3A quarterfinal Tuesday at Cownie Soccer Park, 4-2.

It’s a result that would have been harder to fathom during Liberty’s 1-5 start this season. Now, it has won eight of its last nine.

“At the start of the season we had a lot of mental issues, beefing with each other, getting mad at each other,” Liberty senior captain Hayden Saul said. “We were missing a bunch of starters. Once we got the starters back and we started winning, the connection came back.”

Saul and his teammates stayed composed Tuesday and he was rewarded by scoring both of Liberty’s equalizers, first in the 26th minute, then in the 46th when he tapped in a rebound that sat invitingly on the goal line.

Another of Liberty’s three Sauls provided the winner, when junior Cooper Saul’s low-driven shot from the top of the box in the 58th minute deflected in.

Liberty’s next task: No. 3 Marion (19-0) in the semifinals at 4:10 p.m. Thursday.

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“We knew (the Mustangs) were one of the best teams in 3A, but we knew our seeding wasn’t actually what we were,” Cooper Saul said. “We knew we were better than our seeding and we knew we had a good chance of beating them.”

Mason Pentecost added a fourth for good measure, scoring on a breakaway in the final minutes.

The result also confirmed that first-year Liberty Coach Matt Harding knows how to pick a movie. The team watched Liverpool’s comeback from a 3-0 deficit against AC Milan to win the 2005 UEFA Champions League final on the ride over.

“That was my only coaching contribution today,” Harding said. “Just kind of instilling that as long as there’s time on the clock, we have to keep doing what works for us, and that’s what we did. That was the most pleasing part for me as a coach.”

The rest, he left up to his players, and the captains who have stepped up.

“This was the growth that I really loved seeing from my captains,” Harding said. “We didn’t really start chirping at each other too bad. We stayed together. We knew we had the quality that we could sort it out.“

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